Electrical connectors for daughter cards are used in various electronic devices including routers, switches, servers, and networking equipment. FIG. 1 illustrates a typical electrical connector with an inserted daughter card. The electrical connector in FIG. 1 has an elongated housing with a slot for receiving a daughter card. The daughter card is held in place via two latches at the two ends of the housing. There are projections on the latches for engaging with corresponding notches on the daughter card to secure or retain the daughter card. To remove the daughter card from the connector, the latches are opened to disengage the projections on the latches from the notches on the daughter card as shown in FIG. 2. In this opened position, the overall longitudinal length of the connector increases relative to the closed position, i.e. length Y 201 is greater than length X 101. This in turn increases the estate area required by the connector. With the shift to smaller electronic devices reducing the space required is desirable. As illustrated in FIG. 3 the longitudinal length Z 301 of the connector of the present invention is shorter than even the closed position longitudinal length X 101 of the prior art connectors.